Sales of tickets for large live events, such as a concert for popular artists or certain sporting events are often events with a very high demand so that the demand can be overwhelmingly greater than the tickets available. Examples of such events are World Series games where 50,000 tickets are available while the demand is in the millions and a concert for a popular headliner performing in a venue offering 15,000 seats, whilst the demand is in the 100,000's.
In an attempt to give all those who wish to buy tickets an equal chance to buy tickets it is common for a specific time to be set for the beginning of the sale of tickets. While this approach is fair to those who want tickets, it often creates a “stampede” when the specific time arrives or creates long lines hours before the event ticket sales begins.
The process for ticket sales is further complicated by the fact that different priced tickets are on sale for different seats. In addition one seat within a price category can be more desirable than another.
There are various methods which have been used or suggested in the past for selling seats to an event in which the demand is greater than the supply for tickets. It is usual that the tickets are sold at many locations to accommodate the large area that potential buyers come from and to also not have hundreds of thousands of potential customers gather at a single location. In one method some form of sequentially numbered identifying object, such as a bracelet, is distributed to potential consumers well in advance of ticket sales, for example, days or weeks before. The potential customers are instructed to show up at a specified sales location shortly before the tickets are to be sold, for example one hour. A “starting number” is randomly picked at each location and the potential customers at each location are physically lined-up in numerical order, starting with the potential customer with the randomly drawn starting number. He or she becomes the first customer. Using this method there is no advantage in showing up early, since each numbered identifying object has the same chance of being first in line. This gives a perception of fairness, since the right to purchase tickets early in the sales process is set up by a lottery.
Attempts have been made to sell tickets for these events on-line, over the internet or the like. The positive features of the prior process have not been used, but rather these internet systems focus primarily on the advantage of the scalability of internet systems and computing power so as to be able to handle the large demand expected. The demand is still typically greater than the capacity of these systems and there is a risk of overwhelming these systems and this, indeed, regularly occurs.
In addition, demand is typically greater than the number of seats to be sold, and users keep trying to gain access to the service until seats are completely sold out, at which point some users can never access the seats. Access to the service is generally controlled randomly and no information on the progress of the sales is communicated to the user. This process can be very inefficient, and frustrating to potential customers.